Sheila Warren Enters New Role as Head of Blockchain Policy at World Economic Forum

Sheila Warren Enters New Role as Head of Blockchain Policy at World Economic Forum

October 20, 2017

On the eve of our 5th Anniversary, NGOsource would like to wish Sheila Warren, a key contributor to the development, launch and success of our program, all the best as she moves to a unique opportunity creating Blockchain policy at the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Sheila will continue supporting TechSoup and NGOsource in an advisory role. We want to recognize Sheila’s myriad of contributions to NGOsource as this chapter closes and wish her much success in her new endeavor.

NGOsource, our service and success, is the result of teamwork, determination, grit, diligence, and the magic of good timing. We are the living, breathing embodiment of what happens when a good idea whose time has come meets the right people to light the way. After just shy of five years of operation we have received over 3,500 ED requests. Together with more than 200 grantmaker members, we have facilitated over one billion dollars in US-based international philanthropy. The term gangbusters comes to mind, but more accurately, we have transformed international philanthropy and are key partners in helping our members do what they do best – change the world.

The success and extraordinary impact of NGOsource is the result of a constellation of contributors from all corners or the philanthropic sector. From our colleagues at TechSoup, to leading voices in US-based grantmaking, to the engineering wizards that created our one-of-a-kind technology – many have played a part in NGOsource’s creation and evolution. Sheila Warren played a significant role in guiding these efforts and in forging NGOsource into an operational and successful service.

Sheila began her own NGOsource story as a legal expert and consultant when it was still the yet to be named ED repository. Sheila served as a leading subject matter expert on Equivalency Determination and provided leadership, legal expertise, and her trademark ingenuity to the process of operationalizing the concept of an ED repository into an advanced technology capable of wizarding and “understanding” an NGO. Sheila soon joined TechSoup and NGOsource as the leader of the TechSoup team charged with developing the service and taking it to market. Sheila worked extensively with stakeholders and US officials at the Treasury and State Departments to develop consensus on the approach of NGOsource. She then continued to lead NGOsource, as well as a team of lawyers, eligibility professionals and development staff as TechSoup’s General Counsel. Sheila’s responsibilities have grown exponentially over the years, but she has remained ever involved and dedicated to her first love, NGOsource, the international grantmaking community, and the NGOs we serve.

Sheila will always be family for NGOsource, but moreover, will remain an active steward, advocate, and advisor helping us continue to transform our sector. NGOsource continues to benefit from the work done by a community of legal experts- including Marc Owens, Michael Durham, Pamela Foster, Karen Halazon, Antony Chiang, and Sheila herself- that guided its early days. Under Sheila’s leadership, an amazing group of attorneys joined and grew to head the NGOsource team, including the incomparable Meghan Hanson – who holds the distinction of completing more EDs than anyone else on the planet – whose focus on quality has been an essential component of NGOsource’s success the better part of the last five years. Meghan is joined in leadership of the legal team by Senior Counsel Martha Lackritz-Peltier. Martha has a wealth of experience in supporting civil society and exempt nonprofit organizations in private practice and for the past year has leveraged her global tax law expertise at NGOsource. Sarah Miller rounds out the surpassing legal team as Legal Counsel helming NGOsource’s rapidly growing ED renewal efforts. This team of attorneys, all recognized experts in philanthropic law, have been and will continue to be the force that powers the service and creates the NGOsource difference.

Asked to reflect on the team, Sheila notes

NGOsource and its team runs like clockwork. The wisdom, know-how, and experience brought to bear by the team every day for the sector, member foundations, and NGOs is impactful beyond what any of us could have predicted. I know that Meghan, Martha, Kevin and the rest of this superlative group will continue to amaze and inspire me, and I cannot wait to see what they accomplish next. NGOsource has been one of the most rewarding endeavors of my career, and I am so proud of what NGOsource is and will become.

This team has and will continue to out-perform its size due to the determination and unparalleled knowledge base of these three superlative legal minds. They are supported by TechSoup’s well-regarded legal team and expertise in the global third sector. Sheila built this thing to last.

We at NGOsource will miss Sheila in our day-to-day ED lives but look forward to her new role as guardian and advisor. Sheila, thank you for what your hard work has wrought. Your work through NGOsource has forever changed the face of US-based grantmaking.

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